WEBVTT - How the Old Course Became the Old Course (Great Courses 1) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.520 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.880 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:07.080 And when I find my ball in Egg. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.520 Friday, Egg, Frida Egg Friday, Fridagg. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.239 Bride, Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:37.800 the course. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.199 Egg Golf Podcast. I am Andy Johnson, but this is 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:46.000 not my episode. This is actually Garrett's podcast. He's on 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:51.199 a doctor ordered vocal rest, so I'm subbing in just 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:55.880 for the intro and the and the advertisements from our partners. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.640 I would, uh, you know, I'd say that a vocal 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.279 ordered rest is one of the worst things that could 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.640 happen to a podcaster. I think I'm starting to think 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.080 about injuries that can derail my life, and something with 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.440 my vocal cords would be a problem. So anyway, this 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.440 is an exciting series. I haven't listened to this podcast 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.760 and I am quite excited to listen to it. It 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.080 was an idea Garrett had and I'm fascinated about the 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.800 topics of this is he wanted to do a short 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.200 series over this holiday break and maybe into early next 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.360 year on a few of the greatest and most influential 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.160 golf courses in the world. So naturally, the first course 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.480 up is the Old Course at Saint Andrew's. So he's 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.839 going to go into depth on the Old Course, i think, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.680 on the history and architecture of it. His guest for 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.320 this episode is Scott McPherson. Scott is a golf course 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.440 architect and historian and he's the author of the book 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.280 Saint Andrews The Evolution of the Old Course. So Scott 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.440 just came out with a new edition of the book 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.680 and you can purchase a copy of your own at 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:09.440 Scott McPherson Golfdesign dot com. That's Scott McPherson Golfdesign dot com. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.600 So we're gonna get to this interview, but first let's 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.200 talk about our partner, Fat Cork. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:16.080 Uh. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.919 Fat Cork is a you know, much like the Old Course, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:25.399 like a wonderful you know, champagne that's super unique and 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.200 a kind of a pilgrimage. If you're into champagne, or 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.200 if you know somebody that's into champagne, you should be 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.200 getting them Fat Cork. We're here in the holiday season. 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:37.560 There's a couple of things. You should have a nice 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.720 little stock of champagne, for your holiday parties. If if 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.560 you're going to holiday parties, it's an awesome host gift. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.600 And then also if you or a loved one love champagne, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.679 a great holiday gift is Fat Quirk's membership. They are 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.120 golf lovers over at Fat Cork. The unique value prop 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.000 of Fat Cork is that they get their champagne from 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:05.680 the growers directly. So think about craft beer, you know, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.120 craft coffee. This is really like craft champagne. They come 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.960 from the growers. These are the most unique grapes you 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.120 can get, and you know, with the membership, you can 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.560 get you know, a denomination of bottles based off how 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.400 much you want. You know, they have three tiers shipped 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.360 to your house every quarter. This makes an awesome gift. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.240 If you join the Champagne Club now you will be 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.000 you know, and use the promo code golf. You'll get 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.400 a bunch of goodies. You'll get a cork like a 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:40.560 cork Seamus headcover, a couple stoppers which are awesome stoppers. 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.480 They make the best stoppers on the market that I've 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.040 ever used, as well as a bottle sleeve that like 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.720 if you want to go on a picnic with a 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.240 champagne bottle. This thing's perfect. You don't have to bring 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.520 a cooler, you just have to use the sleeve. So 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.360 that's for the club. And if you're just looking for bottles, 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.640 if you want some bottles for whether it's New Year's 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.280 you know, go to fatcork dot com use the promo 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.200 code golf and you get free shipping on your order. 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.400 So that's not significant. You know, you're talking twenty to 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:14.040 eighty dollars for free shipping and they are. They're great people, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.560 awesome customer service. Fatcork dot com. That's f A T. 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.039 C O r K dot com and thank you for 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.720 their support. Now let's get to Scott McPherson. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:34.440 All right, So Scott, your book is this incredibly detailed 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:39.719 account of the Old Courses evolution. How did you first 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.440 get familiar with Saint Andrews and then what prompted you 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.279 to dive so deeply into the history like this. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.799 Oh, I'm a fan of the Old Course like everybody 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.080 else you know, and and a visitor in many ways 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.800 like everybody else. My grandparents were Scottish and they had 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:57.800 immigrated to New Zealand, and my dad was born in 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.080 New Zealand and we come back, Okay to Scotland, and 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:02.839 I think in the eighties I came with mom and 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:04.640 dad and you know, we got to the first tea 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.880 and you know, I was a teenager at that point 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.320 and there wasn't the chance to play that that particular day. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.720 But I think a little spark that when I got 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.120 to the university age St Andrews as a university was 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.760 kind of on my radar. It wasn't going to happen, 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.000 but it was on my radar as a you know, 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:27.400 this dream opportunity possibility. So I think I've always had 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.840 a knowledge of Scotland and of St Andrews, and you know, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.480 when I decided that I really wanted to get into 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.000 the golf design industry, I went to university. I did 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.120 a horticulture degree, and I won a scholarship and went 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.000 to California and UC Davison did landscape architecture, which was great, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.600 particularly the environmental side of golf course design, which is 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.279 which is what I was interested in then and still 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.279 am now thirty years later. I ended up my first, 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.080 I guess, real job. My parents were on a farm 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:58.960 and I designed a pass three on the farm and 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:00.360 all that sort of stuff. But The first sort of 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.159 real job was working for Peter Thompson, five times Open 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.680 champion in Melbourne in Australia, and you know it was 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.360 great and he's an incredible man. Was an incredible man, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.039 a great ambassador, I mean obviously a great player, but 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.520 very warm human being. And you know, he had a 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.360 house in St Andrew's. He designed the links the Duke's 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.920 Course in St Andrews, and so there was a number 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.720 of conversations in the office around about St Andrew's and 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.080 you know, it just kept reinforcing it in my mind 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.960 that I really need to go back. So there was 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.039 a dip in the fortunes of the Peter Thompson Design Company, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:37.760 mainly because we had a lot of work in Malaysia 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.640 and there was sort of a dip in I think 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.720 there was a coup in the in the mid nineties, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.080 and so I was one of the young guys and 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:45.320 you know it was sort of put to me that 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.560 maybe this is a good time to do some traveling. 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.400 I thought, yeah, actually, maybe this is a good time 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.919 to do some traveling and go to St Andrews. So 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.000 Peter very kindly wrote me a letter saying, look, if 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.560 you get to St Andrew's call the RNA. A friend 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.320 of mine is the second through the RNA. Michael Banellick 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.520 very recently passed away, very sadly. That was obviously discern 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:09.760 Michael Banellick. Now anyway, so I do this, so I, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.880 you know, this kid in a candy store right rock 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:14.600 and to St. Andrews with this letter in my hand, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.600 called the RNA and say, look, you know, can I 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.000 have a meeting with Michael Banellick? You know an introduction 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.120 by Peter Thompson. Sure, and Michael was incredible. Yeah, you know, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.840 next week, come on down to the RNA and in 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.000 the trophy room there, sit down and he said, you know, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:32.720 what would you like to do. And I said, I'd 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.760 like to stay in design if possible. And he said, well, actually, 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.600 they're planning on building a new golf course just up 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.960 the road. You know, I might be able to get 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.040 you introduced to the people doing it. They're here for 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.000 a meeting next week. And it was actually, you know, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.040 Jean Sarason turned up. So once I knew Jean Sarason 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:48.800 was going to turn up, I went down to one 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:50.880 of the local bookstores and bought, you know, thirty years 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.560 of Championship golf, and you know I couldn't wait to 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.000 meet him because he invented the sandwich. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:56.800 In credible guy. 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.200 So took this reprinted version and got him to sign 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.640 it and got to meet the new developer and the 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.400 new architect, an American guy called Dennis Griffiths. 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.280 And they said, hey, this is cool. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.160 You know, we don't know if we're going to get 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:11.960 permits to build the golf course, but you know, what 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.360 are your plans? And I said, well, you know, I'm 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:15.640 going to stay around for a bit. I had a 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.200 New Zealand friend who was doing his PhD at s 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.080 Andrew's University, and so. 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:21.880 I thought, well stay for a bit, and you know, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:23.280 threw all. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.440 My eggs into one basket, thinking if this, if this 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.440 comes off, you know, it's a dream come true. So 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:30.520 you know, it took a little over a year to 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.160 get the planning permits and then I was offered the 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.280 job as the on site architect for the two golf 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.840 courses at s Andrew's which is is now the Fairmont 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:39.559 and Andrews. It was s and Andrew's Bay back in 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.760 nineteen ninety nine when I started on site. But in 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.240 that in that year, the intervening year. You know, I 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.120 had to doing some money, right, So my New Zealand 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:52.839 friends said, hey, do what we do. Just caddy on 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:54.840 the old course. You know, it's easy. And I had 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.760 done a little bit of cadding on the Australian tour, 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.640 so I was capable of blacking a background a residential 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.720 caddying and two caddying, you know, two very different things. 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:08.559 And you know, you sort of going around and we're 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.120 doing sort of eleven ten or eleven rounds a week. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.839 You know, I think I ended up doing about three 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.880 hundred rounds. And you know, you go round around often 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.200 with different caddies, but there would be caddies that you'd 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.080 see again and again and they'd tell very similar stories 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.600 and I hope to ingratiate themselves with whoever their player 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:29.800 was to get a bigger tip at the end of it. 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.760 In fact, Tip Anderson, you know, legendary caddy, was one 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:35.680 of the caddies that were still alive at the time, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.440 and I did a few looks with him. Unfortunately, his 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.160 caddy notes so I think Palmer is one of the 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.240 things in the book. He gave me a time. But 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.080 the caddies would say, you know, all the bunkers were 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:51.360 made by sheep, and you know, these things have never changed. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.920 And you know the railway was put in and make 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.920 up a year, you know, and I'm thinking this isn't right, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.720 you know, this is just been with Peter Thompson. And 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.600 I had a great library in Melbourne. I was going 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.080 through all through the books, thinking, of course has changed 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.680 quite a bit, but I had no proof. So you know, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.439 once the winter months came along, I sort of went 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.040 into the different libraries and I bought different books and 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.640 I started put together a spreadsheet thinking I've got to 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.240 try and track all the lengths of all the holes, 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:19.440 and I thought the only one I could do it 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.199 was really the Open Championship, the first one being eighteen 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.000 seventy two, is it right? 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.000 And eighteen seventy three, seventy three? Yeah. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:32.360 I was just going to say, it's one of those 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:34.680 seventy one, seventy two, seventy three, one of those. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah it's And I'm thinking there's got to 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:40.800 be there has to be quite a lot of change here. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.240 But I needed to be able to prove it. So 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.080 I started with that first Open and went through and 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:48.199 tried to get. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:50.600 Eighteen seventy three. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.640 All the opens that very early years, there was not 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.000 much information, in fact, no information. You know, they'd tracked 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.160 the results, but they wouldn't track the course changes. And 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.760 it wasn't really until I got into the eighteen nineties 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.000 there was sort of an inkling of how whole longs, 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:08.280 how long the holes were. In eighteen ninety five it 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.880 became really clear that was the first open where they 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.679 had the whole lengths, and certainly by nineteen hundred they 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:13.960 had it. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:15.640 So I filled out all this. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.240 Spreadsheet and I started to notice certain periods where there 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.160 was very deliberate change, and I thought, hang on, I 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.680 have to two or three yards didn't feel like deliberate, 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.600 so I made up eleven yards if I'd noticed there 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.280 was eleven yards more or less, because actually holes were 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.600 getting shorter sometimes as well. I started a color code 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.800 these whole changes once I went through all the opens, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.000 and this was up until because the first, the first 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.520 dish of the book came out two thousand and seven, 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.160 so I really could only get to the two thousand 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.360 and five open. Once I got them, I noticed really 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.640 deliberate changes around certain periods, and they all linked interestingly 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:58.600 enough to changes in technology, mainly golf ball, and so 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.320 you could see all of a sudden there was a 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:07.480 direct correlation between technology and the expansion of the old course. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:10.959 And I thought that was I thought that was pretty interesting. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.720 And I don't think it had been seen before, certainly 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.920 not in the way that I tried to document it. 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.040 And you know, I had no intention to write a book. 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.080 That was the irony of this whole process. It was 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:24.000 really only for me to prove to myself that there 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.560 had been significant changes over this period. And a couple 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.600 of people found out about it, and George Peppo, who's 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.760 a you know, American, wrote he lived in St. Andrews, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.120 actually on the side of the eighteenth Fairway, and so 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.360 he became interested in a couple of the journalists who 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.640 were writing getting ready for the two thousand and five Open, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.760 so they were starting to use my research for their 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.880 newspapers or for Peter Alice used it for the Open itself. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.600 So and they then encouraged me to into a book, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.320 which was great on one level, but you know, ended 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.120 up being another two year project and endless out. I 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.600 was a sleep sleepless nights trying to combine it altogether. 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.160 But I became kind of determined to try and find 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.720 a way to make to show this in a way 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:15.120 that was easy to read and easy to understand, in 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:17.360 a book that had all the great plans. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.960 You know. I obviously for a day job, we'd. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.720 Draw plans, and there's so many great plans of the 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:24.440 Old Course that I wanted to have a book that 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.240 showed all those And it was a very visual book 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.240 because you can easily get bogged down in the numbers 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.240 with st Andrews, So I wanted it to look like 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.360 a coffee table book, but effectively to be a research 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.640 piece for people who really wanted to do a deep 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.800 dive into the evolution of the Old Course. And that's 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.280 where the name came from, because it tracks the evolution 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.880 both with and length and the physical changes mainly spurred 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.920 on due to technology over a key two hundred period. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:57.960 So the first map of the Old Course was eighteen 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.440 twenty one, and that's really where the book starts, and 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.719 it goes now with this new edition, it goes up 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.400 to well, actually really it goes up to twenty twenty three. 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.640 That follows the open up to last year, and then 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.679 there's bits that happened post open that are also included 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:13.240 in the book. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.400 That's the short version, the short version of how the 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.440 book came to be. Now, that's all very interesting. Why 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.000 don't we dig into a little bit of the history. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.560 As you say, the book really properly starts in eighteen 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.760 twenty one, I believe it is with one of the 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.920 first really detailed or informative plans of the Old Course, 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.240 or it was not then called the Old Course, of course, 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.840 it is Saint Andrew's Lynks or some version of that, 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.600 or pillmore links. But in any case, I'd like to 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.640 maybe start with a general sketch of what the course 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.160 was like in its very early days. I know there's 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.880 not much evidence, but just briefly, if you could take 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.480 me back to the beginnings of golf in Saint Andrews, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.280 how early was the game play on those lengths and 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.880 what information do we have about what the course was 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.040 like in its early pre nineteenth century days. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.600 There's not a lot of information, and I guess one 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.440 of the things that I've tried to do in this 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.080 book is be quite factual, because it's really easy to 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.200 get into writing about things without great information. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.440 Speculation and romance and generalities about what the course was 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.760 like in the seventeen hundreds. We know though that it 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.320 went from twenty two to eighteen holes. That's one thing 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:33.880 that kind of happened in this period. 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.480 Yeah, correct, So that's in the mid seventeen hundreds, So 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.920 it's quite a long way before the first map came along. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.400 I think we know that the Gulf was very hard, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.600 that the course is very difficult. You know, there was 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.480 no concept of fairways. It was all through the green. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:49.760 You know. 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.200 It's really it's interesting terminology when you dip into that 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.720 sort of stuff, because I could talk to people today 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.880 and say, well, you know, there weren't fairways. What do 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.200 you mean they weren't fairways? You know, there weren'ts you know, 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:03.440 what do you mean? There were moas well? It was 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.280 I mean there was sheep on the golf course until 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.200 nineteen forty six, you know, I think there was postcards 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.640 still being put out with images of sheep. So the 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.360 game has come and the golf course has come so 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:18.280 far that it's very difficult for people to even visualize 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.880 what golf was like. I think one of the one 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.920 of the one of the takeaways from the book, and 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.080 I might be jumping head here a little bit. But 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.560 one of the takeaways for the book for me as 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.800 a golf course architect was how we look at a 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:37.320 golf course now. So one of the ways that we 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.040 look at golf courses now is to do with greens. 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.400 You know, you'll think of a golf course and you go, boy, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.400 the greens are fantastic, you know, rolling, really smooth. Maybe 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.240 they had maybe they were pretty flat, or maybe they 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.520 had quite a lot of contour change, whatever they might have. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.280 We talk about the greens a lot. You look at 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.920 St Andrews and you look back to those early plans, 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.560 there is almost no mention of the greens. Some some mentioned, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.479 you know, certainly when they got into double greens, there 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.719 was talk about that, but there's no real detailed plans 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.720 of the greens. But what there were were detailed plans 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.560 of the bunkers, you know, eighteen thirty six and was 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.560 the second main plan. Very you know, they're getting into 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.920 the detailed look at the bunkers, and other courses around 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.720 Scotland and the UK were doing the same thing. You know, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.720 you could talk about Pandemonium, the bunker that was at Muscleborough, 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.640 or you could go over to the Alps at Presswork 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.080 or you could go down to you know, Ross and George' 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:37.720 or wherever, and they were talking about the hazards and 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.720 how difficult they were, and they were proud of that. 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.320 It was almost like that's how they compared golf courses, 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.159 not to do with greens. So that's kind of an 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.560 interesting takeaway that you know, we've moved a long way from. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:54.119 I mean, hazard's still important, obviously, and but they're not 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.480 They're not the defining factor. They're not you know, they're 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.680 not swaying people one way or another in terms of 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.399 where they're going to go on plane next. It's not 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.239 a bell Weather sort of thing. And actually, I mean 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.679 you could you could widen that out and talk about 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.119 you know, us as humans, right, we're made up of 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.240 I think they, I think the scientists think that human 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.640 body is made up of about fifty nine different elements, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:17.680 which in there there are in their own right and 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:22.879 not really very important. You know, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, you know, 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.760 I think we're sixty percent oxygen. Now obviously most of 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:30.000 that's mixed with hydrogen so it turns into water. But 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.920 each of those elements is not particularly important until you 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.080 put it together in the form of a human and 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.520 that is really important. And the old course is a 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.240 bit the same that the elements are not not particularly important. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.840 A reveted bunker here, a tea there, you know, a 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.480 green over there, wall there, gorse here, individually don't really 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.120 mean much. But it's the way that they're combined in St. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.760 Andrews on the signe on the sand with the wind 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.919 that you have turned it into this just increable golf course, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.639 you know, And that's why it can never be replicated. 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:05.359 You know, you could never think, well, you know, people 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.399 have tried, you know, we're just going to build you know, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.240 the seventeenth hole, that we're going to build the eleventh 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.000 hole and do that. Well, they never played the same. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.800 So yeah, there's I think there's broader takeaways with the whole, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.360 with the whole experience of s Andrew's that make it 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.359 so unique, and I hope that comes out in the book, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.480 that we dive into the details. But ultimately it's the 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:35.160 overall picture that gives us this just most incredible place. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.480 And that overall picture has really evolved over time, starting 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.919 with that course you were talking about earlier, which didn't 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:48.520 really have distinguished greens or distinguished fair ways or distinguished 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.000 teas for that matter, those evolved at a particular point 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.640 in the course's history. And so I think that one 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.960 thing that people need to adjust their perspective about when 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.720 they think about the early Old Course is that it's 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.240 not like we draw golf holes now. When we draw 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.520 golf holes now, we draw a little tea, we draw 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.480 a fairway, and we draw a green. But the golf 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.520 course wasn't understood that way, I don't think in the 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.000 seventeen hundreds or even for much of the nineteenth century. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.280 And so that's just a very interesting thing to know 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.240 and to remember. I'd like to get to the old 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.680 Course as it was in sort of what we could 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:32.600 call documented history, and that really starts in the early 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.520 eighteen hundreds, eighteen twenties on. If you were to take 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:42.120 a modern person and PLoP them down on the old 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.040 course in the eighteen thirties, say before the Gutta Percha 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.600 ball entered the picture and started to motivate some change, 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.200 what would be the surprising thing, the most surprising thing 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:58.200 to this person about what they would see on that 0:20:58.320 --> 0:20:59.120 golf links. 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.600 That's great, and isn't it. If you were dropped from 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.600 the moon, what would you what would you see or. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.119 Drop from the twenty first century, Right, you're a golfer 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.199 in the twenty for a century. You're used to what 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.240 golf courses look like now, or you're used to even 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.639 what the old course looks like now. What would be 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.639 surprising about that that earlier version of the documented old course? 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.320 Yeah, I would say that one of the things you'd 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.000 noticed quite clearly is the lack of defined edges. So 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.359 if we think of MOA's and what they do, they 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.639 leave an edge, and you know that that wouldn't have 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.280 happened because they just weren't there. Then they weren't. They 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.480 weren't doing it in that sort of way. So I 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.720 think you've got to almost imagine this place where grasses 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.720 are longer and hairer, and there's a lot more of 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:45.840 a blurred area, blurred perimeter between the different play zones. 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:48.399 I often say to people, I see, you've got to 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.840 think of golf in those older periods as a cross 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.760 country adventure. There was a starting point and there was 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.240 an endpoint, and there's really no definition in between. In 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:00.520 the book and the very towards the end, I do 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.840 a comparison between nineteen hundred golf and twenty twenty golf. 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.840 And one of the difficult things in doing those side 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.359 by side diagrams was trying to blur the trying to 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.680 blur these edges, to not even define really where the 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.720 green is. We have to, but it was trying to 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.639 not show that, you know, I think there was I 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.560 think there are critical periods, and you've chosen an interesting 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.000 one there, and I move at about thirty years forward too. 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.919 I tend to think that arguably the most important period 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.240 and the evolution of the Old Course is between about 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.399 eighteen fifty and eighteen seventy, and the gutt aperture was 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.000 in play at that point. But what happened to the 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.200 Old course was the double hole. The double greens came 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:46.080 into play eighteen fifty six. Eighteen fifty seven, the RNA 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:50.120 allowed that all the greens to have double holes cut 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.280 in them that only been one prior to that. Because 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:57.760 the game was growing in popularity, the railway just sort 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.520 of started in Saint Andrews. There's a lot more people coming. 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:05.359 I'm a busier golf course. Old Time returned to St. 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.280 Andrews in eighteen sixty four, so then there's starting to 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.159 be the expansion the building of the eighteenth Green the 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.520 first Open Championship eighteen seventy three. You know, so I 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.240 think there's a key prea there where it goes from 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:23.199 that kind of ruggedy sort of golf course not you know, 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:25.359 an you got to remember it's free, right, there's no 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.600 green fees here. People just go and play golf as organized. 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:32.080 Matches, no maintenance budget basically. 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:37.199 No, that's right. So you know, it goes from that, 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.560 and then and then I think it hits this. The 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:44.080 RNA starts it, and it's to do with golf growing 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.720 and popularity, and the train is a big and a 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.960 big part of this picture bringing people into the town 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.720 and parking them effectively right next to the seventeenth Green there. 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:57.199 So yeah, and then old Time coming back and he 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.960 does obviously incredible work on the conditioning of the golf course. 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.520 You know, they're adding sand everywhere, starting to move flags around, 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.840 taking holes out of play, you know, taking heather out, 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:12.560 relaying with turf, just constantly increasing the quality of the 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.120 links through that period right through then having the first 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:17.720 the first Open in St. 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:18.200 Andrews. 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:20.720 So you've been going around since eighteen sixty, but that 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:24.120 was the first one in St. Andrews and then right 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:26.840 the way through. So for me and the book talks 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:28.760 about it a little bit to new but it's a 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:31.560 new addition to this book which new information we've found 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.159 out since the first edition came out, which was to 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:38.639 do what with the expansion of the area around the 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:42.600 Swilken Burn the first Green, the seventeenth Green, and it 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:44.439 had always been a mystery. It was a mystery to 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:47.920 me until last year that we never quite knew how 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:50.800 the first Green came to play, came into play, you know, 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:55.920 we knew that there'd been a change, and the thought 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:57.720 was that it was a green that was built a 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.280 bit like the eighteenth Green was. It was an act. 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:02.879 It was almost commissioned, and it was built and it 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:05.919 was opened, and there was a date around that, whereas 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.800 the first Green was it was never quite so clear. 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:12.000 And I think what has happened now? And this came 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:14.159 to light due to a court case to do with 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:19.560 the Himalayas, a trespassing case to do with a man 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:23.520 who felt that he could play on Himalayas at any 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:25.720 time he liked, and actually he had a very good case. 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.280 He ended up losing the court case. But what happened 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:31.080 was we had we got ninety pages of testimonial from 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:33.680 old Tom some of the leading players of the day 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:39.320 the RNA, including washerwomen who were working in the b 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:42.159 and you know, doing clean clothes in the burn. So 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:44.240 we became we've got a very clear picture of kind 0:25:44.240 --> 0:25:48.520 of what was happening around that area. And I think 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:51.800 the reality was that the first green evolved. There was 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:54.800 the Secretary of the RNA at the time, at chat 0:25:54.840 --> 0:25:57.960 with Stuart Grace, gave evidence very early on and I 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:01.919 think it was to a three day case that the 0:26:02.000 --> 0:26:05.680 new hole second hole in that double green was cut 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:08.920 closer to the burn and towards the sea. So there's 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:12.400 been some debate about whether the seventeenth Green was ever 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:14.400 a double green, and for the first time we now 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:16.840 know and we have it an evidence from the chap 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:19.840 who was secretary from about eighteen forty two right through 0:26:19.880 --> 0:26:22.320 to this court case in the eighteen eighties. You know, 0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:26.239 he was in position for little over forty years, so 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:30.160 from when the mandate was put in eighteen fifty six 0:26:30.520 --> 0:26:33.600 for the double greens right through to this court case. 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:37.119 So yeah, he made it very clear that firstly that 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:39.800 the seventeenth Green was a double green, and then we 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:42.440 hear all this evidence about where the balls were landing, 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:48.320 about the washing being laid out over the I say 0:26:48.359 --> 0:26:51.760 fairways out over that area and then being put on 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:54.360 the gorse to dry. And it was the trampling effect 0:26:54.400 --> 0:27:00.320 really of these long agricultural grasses that started to repair 0:27:00.400 --> 0:27:03.200 what is now the first green area for becoming a green. 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:05.680 And it was it was Tom Morris who took advantage 0:27:05.680 --> 0:27:07.960 of that when he was moving around and trying to 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:12.159 look at player safety, ball strike issues with the seventeenth 0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:14.880 Green moving that green away. And I mean we even 0:27:14.880 --> 0:27:17.480 know at one point that first the first hole played 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:19.960 as a part three. The hole wasn't even over the 0:27:19.960 --> 0:27:22.199 burn it was cut short of. But there was just 0:27:22.280 --> 0:27:25.560 a lot of change, you know, they weren't. We seem 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:27.800 quite stuck now and kind of where holes are and 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:30.520 where they need to play from and play too. There 0:27:30.600 --> 0:27:35.000 wasn't those restraints in that period between the eighteen fifty 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:40.840 sixty seventies and until the right hand course got more 0:27:40.960 --> 0:27:43.800 established with the new T's right. 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:46.080 So, Okay, there's a lot in there. There's a lot 0:27:46.080 --> 0:27:48.840 of detail here. What you're documenting is some of the 0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:51.919 changes that happened in the middle of the nineteenth century. 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:55.600 I want to get a general picture of what was 0:27:56.040 --> 0:27:59.200 happening to the course at this time, because one surprising 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:02.320 thing to this hypothetical modern person that might be plopped 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:05.320 down on the old course as it was before the 0:28:05.359 --> 0:28:07.720 advent of the gut of percha ball and the coming 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:11.120 of the railroad, one surprising thing to that person would 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:14.280 be that the old course was a lot narrower back then, 0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:17.800 as in the playing area, the playing corridor was bordered 0:28:18.359 --> 0:28:22.679 by kind of wild grasses and gorse, and the space 0:28:22.720 --> 0:28:26.640 in which you could reasonably play your ball was narrower 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:32.240 than it is now, and players would play essentially the 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:35.960 same path out and back. They would play to the 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:40.560 same holes. There weren't double greens yet, and so coming 0:28:40.600 --> 0:28:43.200 back you would play to the same hole that you 0:28:43.240 --> 0:28:47.440 had played to on the way out, on that particular green. 0:28:48.360 --> 0:28:54.040 So that changed over the course of the mid nineteenth century, 0:28:54.040 --> 0:28:57.360 and the course became more what it is now, very 0:28:57.440 --> 0:29:02.680 wide with these double greens and defined courses for going 0:29:02.720 --> 0:29:04.960 out and coming back. You don't come back on the 0:29:05.000 --> 0:29:10.120 same path that you go out. So how generally was 0:29:10.200 --> 0:29:13.520 that change made? Why was it made? 0:29:13.800 --> 0:29:16.200 Yeah, you're right, absolutely right. I mean, it would have 0:29:16.200 --> 0:29:19.920 been a very narrow golf course originally, and so the 0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:23.120 widening of the golf course was a response to increase 0:29:23.200 --> 0:29:31.040 play popularity, ball safety and the you know, the key 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:33.720 one of the key areas with the widening of the 0:29:33.760 --> 0:29:36.200 course was around that first eighteenth whole area as we 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:40.520 know it today and the reclaiming of the first fairway 0:29:40.720 --> 0:29:44.840 from the sea, which took place over over a longer 0:29:44.840 --> 0:29:49.600 period sort of a mid eighteen hundreds to nineteen hundred, 0:29:49.880 --> 0:29:52.320 and the bruce Embankment was a big key part of that. 0:29:53.080 --> 0:29:56.400 It's really hard to imagine these days, but the sea 0:29:56.480 --> 0:29:59.800 that comes up if you've ever been to Saint Andrews, 0:30:00.080 --> 0:30:02.840 you know the RNA Clubhouse and up behind the clubhouse 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:06.160 as a car park known so locally as the Museum 0:30:06.200 --> 0:30:09.360 car Park, Well that never existed, so that the sea 0:30:09.400 --> 0:30:13.880 which is there sort of sea World could have flowed 0:30:14.040 --> 0:30:16.800 up over the beach and kind of around that right 0:30:16.840 --> 0:30:20.840 hand side. So when that bruce Embankment came, that broke 0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:23.440 that opportunity for the sea to get through that area 0:30:23.480 --> 0:30:27.440 and reclaimed a significant amount of land. So that was 0:30:27.480 --> 0:30:30.520 a that was a really key part. But the widening 0:30:30.560 --> 0:30:34.360 of the golf course more broadly was due to popularity. 0:30:34.440 --> 0:30:37.440 And you know, the cleanest example to go is the 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:40.840 fifth Fairway where previously they you know, the hole would 0:30:40.840 --> 0:30:42.800 have played up to the Lising Fields, which is the 0:30:42.840 --> 0:30:45.040 fourteenth fairway, and then you would have played across to 0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:46.040 what's the fifth green. 0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:48.200 You would have had to hit your drive across the 0:30:48.240 --> 0:30:51.360 hell Bunker. People who are familiar with that hell Bunker 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.920 in its position on the now fourteenth hole, the old 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:58.000 fifth Hall, which players at the time thought was a 0:30:58.040 --> 0:31:01.000 really great hole. You would have your drive over the 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:04.120 hell Bunker and it was quite a carry back then 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:05.160 it's kind of crazy. 0:31:05.840 --> 0:31:07.880 Yeah, yeah, that's right. So you had to cross it twice. 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:09.560 You had you had had it over and up on 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:11.760 the Elizaneth Fields and then as you went along you'd 0:31:12.040 --> 0:31:14.760 strike the beardies and then you'd have to go across 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:17.720 the beardies to get on to you know, the fifth 0:31:17.720 --> 0:31:19.800 green or the watch is the double Green, and that 0:31:19.920 --> 0:31:22.440 was the first of the double greens, and you know, 0:31:22.520 --> 0:31:26.600 you start to think about the difficulty of that shot, 0:31:27.160 --> 0:31:30.400 you know, with Hickory clubs, with these gutty golf balls, 0:31:30.440 --> 0:31:35.760 potentially and you know what we have now and there 0:31:35.800 --> 0:31:39.280 was obviously the sandwich. You know, we'd talked about Jeane 0:31:39.280 --> 0:31:41.520 Sarahson earlier. Right, there was no sandwich in those days. 0:31:41.520 --> 0:31:44.120 So they had these clubs that they could get out with, 0:31:45.080 --> 0:31:48.120 but it was a lot more difficult, incredibly more difficult, 0:31:48.120 --> 0:31:50.280 you know, So you hear these stories of you know, 0:31:50.360 --> 0:31:53.240 guys going around hitting seventies, I think seventy seven, you know, 0:31:53.320 --> 0:31:57.360 course record young Tom Morris going around and doing it sequentially, 0:31:57.440 --> 0:32:00.440 you know, in the high seventies or maybe eighty. You think, oh, 0:32:00.440 --> 0:32:03.600 that's pretty good, but we're comparing with modern day technology 0:32:03.640 --> 0:32:08.040 and these wide fairways. Those were incredible scores in those 0:32:08.160 --> 0:32:10.880 days based on the difficulty. And of course coming back, 0:32:11.280 --> 0:32:13.680 you know, you'd be teeing off and the rules were changing. 0:32:13.720 --> 0:32:15.880 So part of the story is a constant changing of 0:32:15.880 --> 0:32:18.480 the rules. So originally, you know, you were sort of 0:32:18.520 --> 0:32:21.240 within a club length or two of the original hole, 0:32:21.360 --> 0:32:23.840 and then it went to four and then eight, six, twelve, 0:32:23.920 --> 0:32:26.640 and then ultimately that rule was changed and they could 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:32.040 build teeing grounds. But if we go to that period 0:32:32.080 --> 0:32:35.520 when the rule was still within say, you know, eight 0:32:35.880 --> 0:32:39.400 club lengths of the whole, then from what we now 0:32:39.440 --> 0:32:43.480 know as the fourteenth hole. You're coming back across the beads, 0:32:43.880 --> 0:32:46.320 which are pretty much out of play on golf, but 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:49.239 they would be to write and play then and on 0:32:49.280 --> 0:32:52.280 your line of play up to the listen fields, and 0:32:52.280 --> 0:32:55.120 then you've got to get over hell bunker and the 0:32:55.320 --> 0:32:58.240 other bunkers around it, and then and then get onto 0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:01.800 the green. So I mean, you're absolutely right, incredibly difficult game. 0:33:02.240 --> 0:33:04.440 And I don't think even today, I'll talk to people 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:07.120 and say, look, it's very easy to think golf is 0:33:07.160 --> 0:33:08.960 a fairly easy game. You only need to go out 0:33:08.960 --> 0:33:11.320 to any golf course on any particular day and see 0:33:11.360 --> 0:33:13.440 how hard it is for most people to play and 0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:16.880 to play well. Well, you amplify that by ten times 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:20.080 or more. And that's how you know Hickory golf would 0:33:20.120 --> 0:33:22.400 have been. But I think in that sort of nineteenth 0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:23.560 central period. 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:31.880 Hey, let's take a quick break to talk about our partner, 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:37.080 the USGA. Speaking of last minute gifts for the golfer 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:39.000 in your life. I've got a great gift. You know, 0:33:39.000 --> 0:33:41.680 if you've got somebody that's impossible to give gifts, to 0:33:42.160 --> 0:33:45.120 give them the gift of the USGA membership. They will 0:33:45.160 --> 0:33:48.720 receive great benefits like the members only hat the bag 0:33:48.800 --> 0:33:52.280 tag and a subscription to the USGA's Golf Journal, and 0:33:52.320 --> 0:33:54.840 the game of golf will get the support it needs 0:33:54.880 --> 0:33:57.720 to continue to thrive for generations to come. You know, 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:01.160 this includes all the turf grass research they're doing, all 0:34:01.200 --> 0:34:03.640 the stuff they're doing around, you know, growing the game 0:34:03.880 --> 0:34:07.920 in underdeveloped areas of the country. You know, really, the 0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:11.480 us GA is is much more than the just the 0:34:11.600 --> 0:34:14.000 people that put on the tournament or the people that 0:34:14.080 --> 0:34:16.400 are making rules changes they are doing. They have so 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:19.839 many great programs, whether it's you know, turf grass or 0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:22.560 you know, how to figure out how to get more 0:34:22.600 --> 0:34:27.880 people playing golf. Give a USGA membership today by visiting 0:34:28.080 --> 0:34:33.080 USGA dot org slash fried Egg. That's USGA dot org 0:34:33.520 --> 0:34:36.839 slash fried Egg thanks to our partners from the us GA. 0:34:37.040 --> 0:34:38.960 And now back to Scott McPherson. 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:47.080 One striking realization I had as I was reading your 0:34:47.080 --> 0:34:49.640 book and looking at the evidence of what the course 0:34:49.920 --> 0:34:52.200 was like and how it turned into the course we're 0:34:52.320 --> 0:34:55.920 familiar with today is that a lot of the bunkers 0:34:56.600 --> 0:35:00.440 that we now know as kind of center line strategic hazards, 0:35:00.960 --> 0:35:03.839 there's room to play around them. If you're in them, 0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:07.000 you're not in good shape, but you can go to 0:35:07.080 --> 0:35:10.680 the side of them, play safely away from them, but 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:13.160 you get a little reward if you play closer to them, 0:35:13.200 --> 0:35:15.200 and you can kind of shorten the hole or get 0:35:15.239 --> 0:35:17.840 a better angle or something like that. It's the classic 0:35:17.880 --> 0:35:22.320 idea of a strategic bunker. But on the early Old Course, 0:35:22.560 --> 0:35:26.320 a lot of these bunkers were effectively cross bunkers because 0:35:26.320 --> 0:35:29.960 the course was so narrow that these bunkers basically went 0:35:30.080 --> 0:35:33.799 all the way across them, so you couldn't play around them. Now, 0:35:33.840 --> 0:35:37.120 what happened with widening is that you could play around them, 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:41.640 and a different sort of spirit of the old course emerged, 0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:45.000 one that the Golden Age architects like Alistair Mackenzie and 0:35:45.040 --> 0:35:49.080 Tom Simpson John Lowe really loved and thought was a feature, 0:35:49.280 --> 0:35:53.920 not a bug. But how did players initially receive this 0:35:54.080 --> 0:35:58.080 widening of the old course? Because surely it made the 0:35:58.120 --> 0:36:00.680 place easier to play, right, Yeah. 0:36:01.080 --> 0:36:01.719 So that's great. 0:36:01.760 --> 0:36:05.520 So you know, John Lowe, incredible thinker of the game, 0:36:06.440 --> 0:36:09.880 editor wrote concerning golf one of the great golf books 0:36:09.880 --> 0:36:12.799 in my mind, so he was saying, and I think 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:16.920 his quote was, golf is a contest of risk. So 0:36:16.920 --> 0:36:19.280 if you think about what that actually means. It means 0:36:19.320 --> 0:36:23.880 that in every shot you're having to balance you know, 0:36:23.960 --> 0:36:27.799 your ability versus the weather, versus the course and the 0:36:27.840 --> 0:36:32.799 hazards and the result. So those center line hazards is 0:36:32.840 --> 0:36:35.120 the example of say, having to get as close as 0:36:35.120 --> 0:36:35.760 you can. 0:36:37.160 --> 0:36:38.800 To risk going in them. 0:36:39.200 --> 0:36:42.200 In order to get some type of reward and easier 0:36:42.200 --> 0:36:44.600 angle to the whole the shorter line, whatever it might 0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:48.319 have been. It's that contest of risk, which I think 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:51.920 is one of the things that separates golf from all 0:36:51.960 --> 0:36:58.239 other sports because it's ever present. So, you know, there 0:36:58.280 --> 0:36:59.640 was a period of time and you look at the 0:36:59.680 --> 0:37:01.879 evilue in the old course when the ball was going 0:37:01.960 --> 0:37:07.000 further and further astray and maybe it wasn't getting into 0:37:08.040 --> 0:37:11.560 trouble as much of maybe some people on the RNA 0:37:11.600 --> 0:37:14.239 committees at the time were hoping to. So there was 0:37:14.280 --> 0:37:17.920 this increase in the amount of bunkering along the periphery 0:37:18.400 --> 0:37:21.640 of the golf course, which may not have been prevalent 0:37:21.760 --> 0:37:26.680 in that nineteenth century earlier mid nineteenth century period. And 0:37:26.960 --> 0:37:29.919 I you know, it's still there today and it's well 0:37:29.960 --> 0:37:32.759 documented in my book. But I don't think those are 0:37:32.760 --> 0:37:35.360 the key bunkers. I think we still come back to 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:39.399 those central bunkers. It could be you know, Principal's nose, 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:44.080 you know, as another example. But the end whole bunkers, 0:37:44.080 --> 0:37:46.680 even on nine, you know, is still in play because 0:37:46.680 --> 0:37:48.759 you don't really want to be down the side. So 0:37:49.280 --> 0:37:51.720 there are some newer bunkers, which is still central bunkers. 0:37:51.760 --> 0:37:54.560 But you know, cheaps bunker was always a great target. 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:57.680 You know, the flag was never down the right hand 0:37:57.680 --> 0:37:59.359 side that we see it now. It was always up 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:01.480 on tops needed to get left in order to have 0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:05.040 a better angle in. But yeah, if you think about 0:38:05.080 --> 0:38:07.600 it in that sort of way, that as a contest 0:38:07.600 --> 0:38:10.799 of risk, and that the best position bunkers make the 0:38:10.840 --> 0:38:14.799 game more interesting, then I think you're starting to understand 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:17.520 the real essence of what the old course is. 0:38:18.160 --> 0:38:21.680 And what's so interesting is that that real essence that 0:38:21.719 --> 0:38:24.920 we understand now about the old course. The reason we 0:38:24.960 --> 0:38:27.640 think it's such a great course because of its width 0:38:27.680 --> 0:38:31.600 and its strategic hazards and this contest of risk that 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:36.719 you mentioned earlier that evolved that wasn't there from the beginning. 0:38:37.280 --> 0:38:40.360 The course took on its width because of this response 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:44.200 to the increased popularity, and it just happened that it 0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:48.319 turned the course into something different. I just find that 0:38:48.520 --> 0:38:53.040 completely fascinating. This wasn't necessarily by design. It just evolved 0:38:53.040 --> 0:38:57.080 this way and people realized once it happened, Wow, this 0:38:57.160 --> 0:38:57.520 is great. 0:38:58.560 --> 0:39:00.000 Yeah, and it's an interesting commison. 0:39:00.480 --> 0:39:02.320 You know, if you're sitting in the sitting in the 0:39:02.320 --> 0:39:04.160 pub with your friends, right and you say, well, actually, 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:07.439 even if the gold golf course who was say, two 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:09.760 or three times wider again than what it is now, 0:39:11.400 --> 0:39:13.720 it wouldn't really make a big difference to the playing 0:39:13.719 --> 0:39:15.480 of the course because you actually still have to come 0:39:15.520 --> 0:39:18.080 back to the middle. You know, in life, you could 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:20.880 probably live your life on the fringes, and certainly in 0:39:20.960 --> 0:39:25.680 terms of our justice system, the further you head off line, 0:39:26.280 --> 0:39:28.360 you know, the greater the punishment once you end up 0:39:28.400 --> 0:39:31.640 in front of a judge. But in golf you can't 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:33.239 really do that. You still have to you have to 0:39:33.239 --> 0:39:34.840 come back to the green. The green is in the 0:39:34.840 --> 0:39:37.000 middle of You've got to come back at some point. 0:39:37.600 --> 0:39:42.959 So yeah, this idea that we target the preferred line 0:39:42.960 --> 0:39:48.279 of play, the desire line, has to be the central 0:39:49.040 --> 0:39:52.839 essence of really good golf course design, you know, And 0:39:52.880 --> 0:39:55.560 that's what I mean That's why the Old Course is 0:39:55.600 --> 0:39:58.080 such a great place to learn from, right for anybody 0:39:58.200 --> 0:40:01.040 and anybody interested in golf course design or architecture. You 0:40:01.320 --> 0:40:05.320 know what what is it separates this course from you know, 0:40:05.360 --> 0:40:07.359 apart from the fact that I mean another that's probably 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:10.120 another discussion for down the pub is you know, all 0:40:10.200 --> 0:40:12.720 the greatest golfers of all time have played the old course. 0:40:13.200 --> 0:40:15.200 I mean, I can think of one great golfer who 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:17.720 i'd call a great golfer who's not played the golf 0:40:17.800 --> 0:40:22.560 course the old course is Ben Hogan, you know, never 0:40:22.680 --> 0:40:25.400 never got to Sir Andrews, and I would say is 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:28.000 a great But you know, with him to one side, 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:34.759 it's tested every great golfer I can think of in 0:40:34.800 --> 0:40:37.280 the history of the game. And yet it's still providing 0:40:37.320 --> 0:40:40.680 a great test today. You can't say that about I 0:40:40.760 --> 0:40:41.719 don't think anywhere else. 0:40:42.560 --> 0:40:45.480 Now. Another thing that happened with the widening of the 0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:49.760 course is that it could start to be played both 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:57.040 clockwise and counterclockwise. Now it's played almost exclusively counterclockwise. Are 0:40:57.040 --> 0:40:59.240 along the right hand route? 0:40:59.560 --> 0:40:59.759 Right? 0:41:00.960 --> 0:41:04.560 Do we know how often the left hand route was 0:41:04.680 --> 0:41:07.200 used in the late eighteen hundreds, and it would have 0:41:07.239 --> 0:41:10.280 to be the late eighteen hundreds, because before there wasn't 0:41:10.320 --> 0:41:12.839 really a left and rate, but once there came to 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:15.839 be the possibility of a left and rate, there were 0:41:15.920 --> 0:41:18.760 different ways that the players could go around the course. 0:41:19.400 --> 0:41:21.640 Do we have a sense of how popular the left 0:41:21.640 --> 0:41:24.760 hand route was and then how the right hand route 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:26.680 came to be the preferred one? 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:28.319 Yeah, I mean it was. I mean it was pretty 0:41:28.400 --> 0:41:31.719 much a weekly thing. It would swap around that regularly. 0:41:32.680 --> 0:41:34.759 There was no preference for a long period of time. 0:41:34.840 --> 0:41:37.160 And really the change was just to do with spreading 0:41:37.160 --> 0:41:39.719 the wearer, you know, so that the divots are in 0:41:39.760 --> 0:41:43.160 different places between those periods. 0:41:43.200 --> 0:41:44.920 But what happened, and again we're going to. 0:41:45.320 --> 0:41:49.000 Come back to technology with this one, is as the 0:41:49.040 --> 0:41:52.360 new golf ball. So the gunner percha ball sort of 0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:55.920 came into play, and you know, the late eighteen hundreds, 0:41:55.960 --> 0:41:59.520 eighteen eighties came into play. It's starting to go further now. 0:42:00.160 --> 0:42:03.480 So people are getting a sense that the contests of 0:42:03.600 --> 0:42:07.120 risk might be changing. They want to try and get 0:42:07.120 --> 0:42:11.120 that back in play. So maybe we need some more tees. Okay, 0:42:11.120 --> 0:42:13.359 well where were going to put the tees? So now 0:42:13.400 --> 0:42:16.239 you have to make a decision, right, it's decision time 0:42:16.760 --> 0:42:18.759 we go left hand course or do we go right 0:42:18.800 --> 0:42:22.040 hand course. You can't do them both. So if you 0:42:22.040 --> 0:42:24.799 look at the routings for what they are, you know, 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:27.000 the right hand course, as we know it's the right 0:42:27.000 --> 0:42:30.600 hand courses. The course we know today has only one crossing, 0:42:30.960 --> 0:42:35.120 one crossover where players crossover, so it's the seventh and 0:42:35.160 --> 0:42:38.879 the eleventh holes, whereas if you play the left hand 0:42:38.960 --> 0:42:41.959 course or the reverse course as we call it, there's 0:42:42.000 --> 0:42:44.759 two or three depending on how it's played. So from 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:48.320 a safety point of view, that there's a greater element 0:42:48.360 --> 0:42:50.759 of risk. So I think it came down simply to 0:42:51.320 --> 0:42:55.120 that fact of why the right hand course was chosen 0:42:55.160 --> 0:42:58.880 to be extended and why it is now the open 0:42:58.920 --> 0:43:02.839 courses we know it was literally black and why as 0:43:02.880 --> 0:43:04.120 a safety related decision. 0:43:04.800 --> 0:43:08.640 Very interesting what could have been I guess you know, 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:11.640 we wouldn't We wouldn't have the road hole as we 0:43:11.760 --> 0:43:14.640 understand it today. There are so many holes that would 0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:17.960 be different, and one of those crossovers that you mentioned 0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:21.120 would happen on the final hole of the course, I 0:43:21.160 --> 0:43:24.240 believe right, because the first hole would have to play 0:43:24.920 --> 0:43:28.160 across the Swolkenburn to the other side of the course 0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:32.480 to essentially the site of the road green that's an 0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:36.919 incredible first hole, and then to come back, of course, 0:43:36.960 --> 0:43:39.880 you would have to play from the area of I 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:43.520 guess the second te to the eighteenth green that old 0:43:43.600 --> 0:43:46.640 Tom Morris built, and so it would just be a 0:43:46.680 --> 0:43:49.279 totally different course. People still occasionally play it today. The 0:43:49.360 --> 0:43:53.080 Links Trust offers some opportunities for people to do that, 0:43:53.600 --> 0:43:56.640 but it is more of a curiosity than it is 0:43:57.160 --> 0:43:59.840 something that people do as part of competition. 0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:02.520 I suppose, yeah, exactly. I mean lucky. 0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:04.640 I mean through the years that I've been here, they've 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:07.319 opened it up a few times, and I've been lucky 0:44:07.400 --> 0:44:09.000 enough to play it a number of times. And I 0:44:09.000 --> 0:44:11.920 think next year, twenty twenty four, they're going to do 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:16.080 it for three days, and it's great that I think 0:44:16.080 --> 0:44:18.000 people get that the chance to play it in the 0:44:18.000 --> 0:44:20.360 opposite way, and you know, you could argue there's probably 0:44:20.400 --> 0:44:22.920 a couple of holes which are maybe better in the 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:27.000 reverse way. You know, playing twelve back up the hill 0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:28.960 makes more sense because you can see the bunkers. You 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:31.040 can't see them when you play the way we play 0:44:31.120 --> 0:44:33.200 today on the right hand course. 0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:36.040 But you know, and you. 0:44:36.040 --> 0:44:38.680 Could hypothesize that you know, if they were in the 0:44:38.719 --> 0:44:41.400 eighteen eighties when they were starting to lengthen the t's 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:43.760 and they wanted to get rid of that crossover between 0:44:44.520 --> 0:44:46.960 you know, on the first and eighteenth holes, they could 0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:50.319 have abandoned old Tom's new eighteenth green, which would have 0:44:50.320 --> 0:44:53.239 only been ten or fifteen years old, and built a 0:44:53.280 --> 0:44:55.719 new green you know, where the current first tee is. 0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:58.719 You know, they could have maybe done a workaround, but 0:44:58.760 --> 0:45:01.080 that's not where they were at at the time, and 0:45:01.400 --> 0:45:03.759 you know, I would probably argue that they made the 0:45:03.840 --> 0:45:07.840 right decision. Whether they had to make the decision, you know, 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:10.239 whether you believe that technology has been good and the 0:45:10.239 --> 0:45:12.880 longer ball has been good as a different debate. You know, 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:15.800 we kind of know that you know, round about nineteen 0:45:15.920 --> 0:45:19.560 hundred the old course was actually there was a big extension. 0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:21.840 They added about two hundred yards, but let's just say 0:45:21.680 --> 0:45:26.840 for round numbers period that at nineteen hundred it was 0:45:27.680 --> 0:45:33.160 six three hundred yards, which it was. You know, where 0:45:33.160 --> 0:45:36.080 we are today for the Open Championship last last year, 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:38.960 we're over a thousand yards longer, you know, and there's 0:45:39.040 --> 0:45:41.600 been this push you know, more recently around two thousand, 0:45:41.600 --> 0:45:44.080 the new teams were put on areas that would have 0:45:44.080 --> 0:45:46.560 been considered outside the boundaries of the old course. So 0:45:46.960 --> 0:45:49.080 the second hole, it was put on the Himalayas. Once 0:45:49.120 --> 0:45:52.120 you get to thirteen it was on the Eden golf Course, 0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:55.880 and again coming back up seventeen was in the practice range. 0:45:56.200 --> 0:45:58.840 So they pushed outside the boundaries. But if you do 0:45:58.880 --> 0:46:00.880 a parallel and that's done that I do it in 0:46:00.920 --> 0:46:05.480 the book for fun. Fun, So the right word interest's 0:46:05.520 --> 0:46:07.839 sake as much as anything. If you look at the 0:46:07.960 --> 0:46:11.480 power of the ball where it was in nineteen hundred 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:13.799 and where it was now, and what it would need 0:46:13.840 --> 0:46:15.759 to be, how long the old course would need to 0:46:15.760 --> 0:46:19.520 be in order to have that relative similarity in the 0:46:19.560 --> 0:46:22.400 old course would need to be about nine thousand yards 0:46:22.560 --> 0:46:25.200 long now and there's no way, of course, you know, 0:46:25.280 --> 0:46:27.120 there's no way you could find we could find another 0:46:27.160 --> 0:46:30.480 fifteen hundred or seventeen hundred yards to make it nine thousand, 0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:32.759 and I don't think actually it would be enjoyable. I 0:46:32.800 --> 0:46:35.040 think it would be a slog It would take away 0:46:35.040 --> 0:46:37.480 a lot of the nuance. But you know, back to 0:46:37.520 --> 0:46:40.680 your question about how would it play if we rolled 0:46:40.680 --> 0:46:43.320 the clock back, you know, one hundred and fifty years 0:46:44.040 --> 0:46:46.399 it's a really difficult game, and the ball's not going 0:46:46.440 --> 0:46:48.960 as far fare ways and narrow the grasses a while, 0:46:49.120 --> 0:46:52.279 the rabbits running around the hole has been worn out. 0:46:52.320 --> 0:46:54.600 There's no whole cups, you know, there's no tin cup 0:46:54.680 --> 0:46:57.280 in the middle of the hole. You know, it's golf, 0:46:57.600 --> 0:46:59.640 but not as we know it now. 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:02.319 Something that you've mentioned a couple of times is the 0:47:02.600 --> 0:47:06.520 changing teeing grounds. This one way that the Old Course 0:47:06.560 --> 0:47:12.200 has been lengthened in response to technology. Really, the Haskell ball, 0:47:12.320 --> 0:47:16.680 which came about in the early nineteen hundreds was one 0:47:16.719 --> 0:47:19.480 of those moments that forced the Old Course to consider 0:47:19.960 --> 0:47:22.720 where else can we put these teeing grounds to extend 0:47:22.800 --> 0:47:25.600 the course and bring some of the key hazards back 0:47:25.640 --> 0:47:30.440 into play. But something that's so interesting about what you 0:47:30.520 --> 0:47:34.160 discovered about the changes at the Old Course in the 0:47:34.200 --> 0:47:38.640 mid eighteen hundreds is that teeing grounds weren't really a 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:43.640 thing until a particular point in the course's evolution. You 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:47.080 would simply take a certain number of club lengths from 0:47:47.160 --> 0:47:50.520 the hole and tee it up there. But at some point, 0:47:50.600 --> 0:47:54.000 and I believe it was old Tom Morris, they introduced 0:47:54.200 --> 0:47:57.959 distinct teeing areas and This strikes me as a really 0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:01.840 important moment in the evolution of golf course design in general, 0:48:02.320 --> 0:48:06.080 to think of the teeing area as a designed thing. 0:48:06.800 --> 0:48:10.400 So how did that happen at St. Andrew's And what 0:48:10.600 --> 0:48:15.120 was the significance of that move toward teeing grounds as 0:48:15.200 --> 0:48:18.000 opposed to just the sort of ad hoc teer it, 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:19.239 you know, close to the hall. 0:48:19.840 --> 0:48:23.120 Yeah, it's a it's a thesis in its own right. 0:48:23.800 --> 0:48:26.200 And I'm not going to remember all the details. I 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:29.200 need to dive back into the book as well, but yeah, 0:48:29.320 --> 0:48:32.080 certainly it was a It was the changes and the rules. 0:48:32.239 --> 0:48:34.799 So I think the idea if you can visualize the 0:48:34.880 --> 0:48:38.040 game getting really popular, and the idea of a group 0:48:38.080 --> 0:48:39.880 standing next to the hole waiting to tee off and 0:48:39.880 --> 0:48:42.040 problem and potentially waiting because there's a group in front 0:48:42.040 --> 0:48:44.040 of them, and now there's a group behind them trying 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:46.440 to hit to that hole as well, and the area 0:48:46.480 --> 0:48:49.120 around the hole is becoming worn out because you know, 0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:52.239 you've got players and caddies. You know, the caddies get 0:48:52.280 --> 0:48:53.800 the ball out and then they take some sand and 0:48:53.840 --> 0:48:57.080 they build a little raised cup for the team for 0:48:57.160 --> 0:49:00.279 the player to tee off the gentleman goal for the 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:03.120 tee off. These areas are getting really worn, so I 0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:05.400 think what was happening is an evolution of the rules 0:49:05.520 --> 0:49:07.799 to try and keep up right. Okay, we now need 0:49:07.840 --> 0:49:11.600 to move the place where the ball is teed further 0:49:11.680 --> 0:49:14.279 away from a current hole until it got to a 0:49:14.320 --> 0:49:17.560 point where you know, the rule was abandoned and that 0:49:17.600 --> 0:49:19.840 you could actually create these separate tea in grounds. I 0:49:19.920 --> 0:49:22.400 can't remember that the year off the top of my head, 0:49:22.760 --> 0:49:24.719 but what I think what we found on and it 0:49:24.760 --> 0:49:27.319 was kind of fun. On the right next to the 0:49:27.320 --> 0:49:30.920 thirteenth green is this area of you know, it's rectangular 0:49:31.120 --> 0:49:34.440 and it's level, and you know, I think it's one 0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:37.360 of the first te's that would have been would have happened, 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:40.200 and old time would have built it in that sort 0:49:40.239 --> 0:49:46.319 of nineteenth century period. And it clearly shows on that 0:49:46.400 --> 0:49:48.799 whole hole which leads into the fourteenth hole of a seat, 0:49:50.040 --> 0:49:55.120 that the procession is back and right, and that's generally 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:57.720 happened across the course. So as the ball's going further 0:49:57.760 --> 0:50:00.000 there's a new tea and it's further back and it's 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:03.000 the right, and you know, that's one of the great 0:50:03.000 --> 0:50:05.680 things about the old course is we can use it. 0:50:05.680 --> 0:50:08.160 It's like looking at DNA, right, you know, this is 0:50:08.160 --> 0:50:11.320 how the game's developed, and we can see it and 0:50:11.360 --> 0:50:12.200 the proof of it here. 0:50:12.840 --> 0:50:16.000 That's such an interesting point that the expansion has happened 0:50:16.120 --> 0:50:18.560 back and rate, because if you think about it, the 0:50:18.600 --> 0:50:22.560 initial teeing ground for a hole would be sort of 0:50:22.600 --> 0:50:25.040 in the in the intuitive spot, which would be near 0:50:25.880 --> 0:50:30.000 the hole of the previous hole. But if you need 0:50:30.040 --> 0:50:32.120 to expand the course, you can't go into the middle 0:50:32.160 --> 0:50:35.279 of the course, so you need to go back and rate, 0:50:35.760 --> 0:50:38.120 and that changes some things about the holes. 0:50:37.840 --> 0:50:41.120 Right, yeah, it does, so we touched on it earlier. Again, 0:50:41.160 --> 0:50:43.520 So if we think about the fourteenth hole, if you 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:46.919 were currently teeing off on the thirteenth green to head 0:50:47.000 --> 0:50:50.880 up to the fourteenth green, right in your eye line, 0:50:51.160 --> 0:50:54.439 are those beards. Now as you go back and right, 0:50:55.560 --> 0:50:58.120 they move off that center line. They move left. They 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:01.040 don't move obviously, but you move, you move right, and 0:51:01.080 --> 0:51:04.640 so therefore they are left, and so you lose strategy. 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:08.600 And you know, you could look at the course and say, well, 0:51:08.840 --> 0:51:10.960 there are courses that are the holes that have become 0:51:11.000 --> 0:51:13.960 better because of that? Are the holes that have become 0:51:14.320 --> 0:51:16.880 maybe less challenging. I mean, I would argue that the 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:21.720 fourteenth is one that's become less challenging because those beardies 0:51:21.760 --> 0:51:24.400 are simply not in play now. One thing that's changed 0:51:24.480 --> 0:51:26.719 is the wall has become out of bounds I think 0:51:26.800 --> 0:51:31.080 nineteen eleven. So you know, there's obviously a consciousness taking 0:51:31.320 --> 0:51:34.799 play where they say, okay, well, people playing plays now 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:35.520 taking this way. 0:51:35.600 --> 0:51:37.080 What can we do maybe to keep it? 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:41.560 But you know, and I'm not sure it's always easy 0:51:41.680 --> 0:51:44.680 to say this is better or worse, to have me 0:51:44.760 --> 0:51:47.319 black or white about it. I think there's examples where 0:51:47.360 --> 0:51:50.759 it is reasonably clear that would be one, but there's 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:56.239 others where it's it's some far more nuanced conversation. And 0:51:57.080 --> 0:52:00.239 you know, are we in a better place than we were? 0:52:00.760 --> 0:52:07.120 I mean arguably yes. Have we lost some of the 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:14.440 experience of those original golf Yes, possibly, but we're you know, 0:52:15.000 --> 0:52:16.600 you put on you know, we live in a modern 0:52:16.640 --> 0:52:18.719 world and we look at what they're doing, and I 0:52:18.760 --> 0:52:21.560 think what the book does is it really tries to 0:52:21.680 --> 0:52:25.399 follow the process. So if we look at the most 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:30.200 recent Open Championship last year, incredible conditioning of the golf course, 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:34.680 vast firm, dry conditions and the Links Trusted in the 0:52:34.800 --> 0:52:38.440 RNA just did a great job with the agronomy, but 0:52:38.480 --> 0:52:42.120 they're still looking to protect par right, so they're still 0:52:42.120 --> 0:52:45.839 looking at this overall scoring. So we know historically that 0:52:46.320 --> 0:52:50.400 length has a fairly minor impact on scoring, so it 0:52:50.440 --> 0:52:53.640 hasn't mattered that the old course has got longer and longer. 0:52:54.360 --> 0:52:56.760 If you look at scoring over that one hundred year period, 0:52:57.120 --> 0:53:01.400 it's decreasing, so it's probably kept it in check. You know, 0:53:01.440 --> 0:53:03.480 long golf course kept in check a little bit, but 0:53:03.560 --> 0:53:07.160 the old course has kept the score of the ability 0:53:07.160 --> 0:53:09.160 of the players who are getting bigger and stronger and 0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:12.360 having it further with better technology, is still able to 0:53:12.400 --> 0:53:16.840 keep scoring going on a downwards tjuctory. So therefore, you know, 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:20.200 the RNA and the Links Trust have looked at other ways. 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:21.960 So you know, it was the flattening of the bottom 0:53:22.040 --> 0:53:23.640 of the of the bunkets, so if you ran into 0:53:23.640 --> 0:53:26.000 a bunkie you might be up against an edge. It 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:29.719 was the positioning of the whole closer to hazards. So 0:53:29.840 --> 0:53:32.120 on the as an example, and this is documented in 0:53:32.160 --> 0:53:35.759 the book. On the first Green, we knew from the 0:53:35.800 --> 0:53:39.239 previous open that they had three greens quite close to 0:53:39.239 --> 0:53:43.759 the Swulkan burn on on whole one and one of 0:53:43.760 --> 0:53:45.200 them was back one of the holes and one of 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:47.719 the days, I think round three was cut back left. 0:53:48.360 --> 0:53:49.200 Well, it was a very. 0:53:49.080 --> 0:53:55.319 Similar configuration last year in twenty twenty three, three of 0:53:55.360 --> 0:53:57.960 them quite close to the burn and one further back, 0:53:58.680 --> 0:54:01.520 but the distance that they were to the burn was 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:05.560 almost half, so instead of being twelve yards or thirteen 0:54:05.640 --> 0:54:07.920 yards from the burn, they were six and seven yards. 0:54:08.719 --> 0:54:11.000 So I think it's an indication that in order to 0:54:11.040 --> 0:54:15.319 try to protect some of the scoring, that had to 0:54:15.360 --> 0:54:18.600 move the position to places where putting is a more 0:54:18.600 --> 0:54:22.960 difficult or there's more more risk, contest of risk, you know, 0:54:23.719 --> 0:54:26.400 back to that again. So yeah, I think we're I 0:54:26.400 --> 0:54:28.840 think the course is changing, and I and it's and 0:54:28.920 --> 0:54:32.239 I stay away from this whole better or worse, because 0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:33.880 I think it's a I don't think you can look 0:54:33.920 --> 0:54:36.960 at it the way, but it's certainly a more nuanced conversation. 0:54:37.200 --> 0:54:40.719 And the result, you know, last year was fantastic. 0:54:40.760 --> 0:54:43.719 It was just incredible open and we got everything we 0:54:43.760 --> 0:54:47.080 wanted out of it, right, But yeah, it's it's just 0:54:47.120 --> 0:54:50.440 a very different golf course than it was, certainly in 0:54:50.480 --> 0:54:51.279 eighteen twenty one. 0:54:51.880 --> 0:54:55.319 And from what it was in the nineteen twenties. You 0:54:55.360 --> 0:54:59.239 know when when Alistair McKenzie drew that diagram of the 0:54:59.280 --> 0:55:02.880 fourteenth hole, probably from that old teeing position that you mentioned, 0:55:03.440 --> 0:55:06.080 where you can play out to the left, play out 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:08.359 to the right, play down the middle. You have all 0:55:08.360 --> 0:55:11.000 these different options, and that's not as much the case 0:55:11.080 --> 0:55:14.560 because of the new teeing position back into the right. 0:55:15.360 --> 0:55:20.480 Another thing that's emerged at the Old Course more recently, 0:55:20.800 --> 0:55:25.200 really in the twenty first century, is the introduction of 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:29.640 some rough right and the narrowing of some fairways with 0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:34.560 maintained rough What do you make of that change? 0:55:34.680 --> 0:55:34.839 Now? 0:55:34.960 --> 0:55:38.480 I would describe you as very diplomatic and circumspect about 0:55:38.800 --> 0:55:44.400 better or worse right. You don't really get into those debates. 0:55:45.080 --> 0:55:48.279 From my perspective, I feel like the width of the 0:55:48.320 --> 0:55:51.600 old course that was discovered, the great discovery of the 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:55.160 nineteenth century was that width and what it brought to 0:55:55.200 --> 0:55:58.279 the game. I don't know. It seems to me that 0:55:58.320 --> 0:55:59.880 the rough is taking a bit of that away. 0:56:00.800 --> 0:56:05.960 So so let's talk about those non fairway areas. And 0:56:06.600 --> 0:56:09.840 I think you have to include in that heather and gorse, 0:56:10.520 --> 0:56:13.880 because those are this floora that you're going to find 0:56:13.880 --> 0:56:15.960 along the way, depending you're. 0:56:15.840 --> 0:56:19.680 On generally farther out right, but not always, but generally 0:56:20.280 --> 0:56:24.319 there's usually the maintained rough and then yeah, past that 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:26.720 there will be the more natural grasses and stuff. 0:56:27.200 --> 0:56:30.080 Yeah, that's right, So you might encounter a long the way, 0:56:30.120 --> 0:56:32.080 but I would say there's been quite a change in 0:56:32.080 --> 0:56:33.000 that through the years. 0:56:35.120 --> 0:56:38.080 You know. Part of the recent research. 0:56:37.760 --> 0:56:40.840 I found, you know, Old Tom closed the ninth and 0:56:40.880 --> 0:56:46.120 tenth fairways for about six months and put a sign 0:56:46.160 --> 0:56:47.919 on the first t green I think, saying that they're 0:56:47.920 --> 0:56:50.719 closed while he took away all the heather and returfed 0:56:50.760 --> 0:56:53.520 the whole area. And so the the you know, the 0:56:53.560 --> 0:56:55.960 old courses continue to change, but I'd like to think 0:56:56.040 --> 0:57:02.480 that that those remain part of the foliaedge that's on 0:57:02.560 --> 0:57:06.200 the old course. I think it's important that there's a 0:57:06.280 --> 0:57:08.800 chance you're going to find a lie. Now, Heather is 0:57:08.840 --> 0:57:12.040 difficult because so many people, you know, going around the 0:57:12.040 --> 0:57:15.520 old course of the fifty two fifty five thousand rounds 0:57:15.520 --> 0:57:18.040 of golf for a year plus caddies, you know, you're 0:57:18.040 --> 0:57:23.080 getting a lot aware so and heather doesn't stand up 0:57:23.120 --> 0:57:23.400 to that. 0:57:23.440 --> 0:57:23.920 So well. 0:57:25.080 --> 0:57:28.000 One thing about the gorse that I've noticed is there's 0:57:28.000 --> 0:57:31.880 always been gorse, say behind the first green, you know, 0:57:31.960 --> 0:57:34.720 that's where when the washerwomen were there, they would lay 0:57:34.720 --> 0:57:37.240 there the blankets and the sheets on top of the 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:42.240 gorse to dry. And earlier, earlier this year they took 0:57:42.240 --> 0:57:44.040 away kind of one of the last stands of gorse. 0:57:44.080 --> 0:57:45.360 So I was it actually a little bit sad to 0:57:45.400 --> 0:57:47.520 see that because I felt that there was a historic 0:57:47.600 --> 0:57:52.360 component to having some gorse in that area. The rough 0:57:52.400 --> 0:57:55.600 itself does change, you know, it goes through different growth patterns. 0:57:55.760 --> 0:57:58.479 It'll be thicker and it'll be thinner. They've certainly tried 0:57:58.480 --> 0:58:01.080 to manicure it in certain places for an Open Championship. 0:58:01.600 --> 0:58:03.400 You know, one thing it does from a playing point 0:58:03.400 --> 0:58:05.480 of view, if you're in the rough, you lose some control. 0:58:05.600 --> 0:58:09.600 So if their flags are tucked behind certain humps or hollows, 0:58:09.720 --> 0:58:11.919 then you know the ball is going to come out hotter. 0:58:12.040 --> 0:58:14.400 So therefore it's harder to get it close to those spots. 0:58:14.400 --> 0:58:17.520 So it makes sense for the golf course to be 0:58:17.640 --> 0:58:20.840 prepared in a way that will add that element of 0:58:22.400 --> 0:58:27.479 risk to for elite golfers at certain times of the year. Well, 0:58:27.840 --> 0:58:32.200 but you know, I think and it sometimes overlooked. I've 0:58:32.200 --> 0:58:34.280 got a son who's thirteen, and he's now played the 0:58:34.280 --> 0:58:36.960 Old Course a couple of times, and occasionally we've gone 0:58:36.960 --> 0:58:38.840 out and we've seen other kids. And one of the 0:58:38.920 --> 0:58:43.160 great I mean, it's really fantastic that literally kids can 0:58:43.160 --> 0:58:45.640 play the Old Course, you know, not physically, but they 0:58:45.640 --> 0:58:48.040 can get around, you know, and actually play pretty well 0:58:48.080 --> 0:58:50.120 because there are quite wide fairways and they can get 0:58:50.120 --> 0:58:50.600 it running. 0:58:51.400 --> 0:58:51.520 You know. 0:58:51.520 --> 0:58:53.440 There still have to be a minimum handicapped and all 0:58:53.480 --> 0:58:56.320 that sort of stuff, but this is not like you know, 0:58:56.320 --> 0:58:59.120 you can go to some great championship courses. They're almost 0:58:59.240 --> 0:59:01.960 unplayable for normal people and certainly for kids who can 0:59:02.000 --> 0:59:04.919 only say carry it so far. But I just see 0:59:04.960 --> 0:59:07.880 it as one of the great virtues of the Links 0:59:08.080 --> 0:59:12.800 is that it's playable for every level of golfer age 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:15.280 group wise, as long as a certain level of ability, 0:59:16.080 --> 0:59:20.760 and that includes the rough, the rough grasses and the 0:59:20.800 --> 0:59:24.320 heather and the gorse. So yeah, it's definitely a component. 0:59:24.400 --> 0:59:27.120 And I know that the RNA think really and the 0:59:27.200 --> 0:59:30.600 Links Trust think really deeply about how they manage that, 0:59:31.920 --> 0:59:33.440 but I think generally they've got it. 0:59:33.560 --> 0:59:35.200 They've got it right, you know. 0:59:35.280 --> 0:59:37.160 The other if you're thinking about and if you're trying 0:59:37.160 --> 0:59:39.320 to make a comparison in your mind about the old 0:59:39.360 --> 0:59:41.200 courses and how it's changed. One of the things to 0:59:41.240 --> 0:59:44.200 think about is the is the look of the bunkers. 0:59:44.960 --> 0:59:47.880 You know, they weren't revetted originally, right, they had these 0:59:47.920 --> 0:59:52.160 collapsed faces. And now you go there and every bunker 0:59:52.160 --> 0:59:54.600 there's one hundred and ten, half of which are named, 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:58.400 but they're all revetted. And that's you know, the bunkers 0:59:58.440 --> 1:00:01.480 have quite a visual, strong visual impact on people that 1:00:01.720 --> 1:00:03.600 take away that take lots of photos, but they take 1:00:03.640 --> 1:00:05.240 away this image of what the bunkers were, but that's 1:00:05.280 --> 1:00:08.720 not what they were. You you could you could have 1:00:08.760 --> 1:00:12.520 a conversation around about that. Is that now what the 1:00:12.520 --> 1:00:14.760 gold course is? Is that just what we are now? 1:00:14.960 --> 1:00:18.600 Or could you ever reintroduce maybe a non revetted face. 1:00:19.320 --> 1:00:21.560 Could it go that way? We have a combination. I 1:00:21.560 --> 1:00:21.920 don't know. 1:00:21.960 --> 1:00:25.080 I mean, these are debates that the RNA links trusts have, 1:00:25.560 --> 1:00:28.240 But it's when you have it in a historical context 1:00:28.320 --> 1:00:31.880 to say, look, we haven't always been revetted. It definitely 1:00:32.120 --> 1:00:35.520 retains those faces. It offers a certain look. But is 1:00:35.560 --> 1:00:38.320 that are we now fixed in that position? You know, 1:00:38.400 --> 1:00:39.520 it's an interesting question. 1:00:40.720 --> 1:00:45.880 We're definitely less willing to consider drastic changes at courses 1:00:46.280 --> 1:00:49.440 like the Old Course than we were one hundred and 1:00:49.440 --> 1:00:53.080 fifty years ago. Certainly, you read about some of the 1:00:53.200 --> 1:00:57.560 things that happened at the Old Course, especially during Old 1:00:57.640 --> 1:01:01.440 Tom Morris's tenure there, and you just think, Wow, they 1:01:01.480 --> 1:01:05.000 were really free to go ahead and make some changes, 1:01:05.120 --> 1:01:08.360 to build a new green that's now the Eighteenth Green, 1:01:08.480 --> 1:01:13.840 to relocate entire holes. Basically, there was a kind of 1:01:14.280 --> 1:01:20.000 freedom of evolution that way that for a variety of reasons, 1:01:20.040 --> 1:01:24.320 we no longer seem capable of. So I want to 1:01:25.120 --> 1:01:27.320 I want to ask you a question that you yourself 1:01:27.400 --> 1:01:31.840 ask toward the beginning of the book that is related 1:01:31.960 --> 1:01:35.440 to what we're discussing here. It's a question that I 1:01:35.520 --> 1:01:39.480 don't think you necessarily come down and answer by the 1:01:39.600 --> 1:01:42.280 end of the book, but it's an interesting one to pose, 1:01:42.400 --> 1:01:45.480 and I wonder how you might go about answering it. 1:01:46.280 --> 1:01:51.280 The question is is man or nature most responsible for 1:01:51.560 --> 1:01:54.760 the making of the physical features on the Old Course. 1:01:55.520 --> 1:01:59.200 You've just been discussing the bunkers, right, and how those 1:01:59.280 --> 1:02:02.000 evolved is a bit of a mystery, But now they're 1:02:02.000 --> 1:02:06.000 certainly more formalized than they once were. You have the 1:02:06.160 --> 1:02:08.360 contours of the fair ways of the old Course, which 1:02:08.400 --> 1:02:11.600 have been there for a long long time. Nobody has 1:02:11.680 --> 1:02:16.280 necessarily intervened with those. But as your book documents, there's 1:02:16.440 --> 1:02:21.120 been quite a bit more intervention from the hand of man, 1:02:22.000 --> 1:02:26.760 certainly more intervention than people usually believe there has been 1:02:26.880 --> 1:02:29.800 at the old Course. So how would you answer that question? 1:02:30.120 --> 1:02:32.320 Is man or nature most responsible? 1:02:33.320 --> 1:02:37.360 It's a great question, right, And the answer is it's changing. 1:02:38.400 --> 1:02:41.040 So if we go back to two hundred years the 1:02:41.120 --> 1:02:43.640 hand of man was very limited, I would have thought 1:02:43.800 --> 1:02:47.920 in what the course is, and now it's greater to 1:02:47.960 --> 1:02:50.360 a large extent, and it all continued to be greater. 1:02:51.440 --> 1:02:54.360 So we go back to you know, what are the elements? 1:02:54.800 --> 1:02:57.440 You know there were bunkers there, well, there were sandy 1:02:57.480 --> 1:03:00.600 areas and by the way, regarding by because I don't 1:03:00.640 --> 1:03:04.400 have a view on it necessarily, but I think those 1:03:04.440 --> 1:03:06.840 those are interesting conversations that need to be have within 1:03:07.000 --> 1:03:10.240 historical context. So again with what you're what you're what 1:03:10.360 --> 1:03:14.480 you're asking, it's it's not quantifiable to say one or 1:03:14.520 --> 1:03:17.440 the other. It's a combination. So I would say at 1:03:17.440 --> 1:03:20.440 the moment and every year we go forward. There is 1:03:20.600 --> 1:03:24.640 a greater element of human intervention in the Old Course. 1:03:25.880 --> 1:03:28.640 There has to be, because they have to maintain certain areas, 1:03:29.200 --> 1:03:30.800 and it might be just a little bit here and 1:03:30.840 --> 1:03:33.840 a little bit there, but that's therefore a change from 1:03:33.880 --> 1:03:35.680 it's say, a natural if we just think about the 1:03:35.760 --> 1:03:40.640 broken ground, the humps and hollows, most of those we'd 1:03:40.760 --> 1:03:45.240 like to think fairly natural, and they probably and we're 1:03:45.240 --> 1:03:50.200 probably right. But every time something has changed, it's another 1:03:50.440 --> 1:03:53.800 half a percent, quarter of a percent, one percent, you know, 1:03:54.000 --> 1:03:57.600 of the Old Course being touched or changed or in 1:03:57.720 --> 1:04:03.480 some way manipulated by human intervention or machine. So you know, 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:07.200 at what point do you think we've gone too far? 1:04:07.560 --> 1:04:10.520 You can never really wrap something in plastic like this. 1:04:10.720 --> 1:04:13.760 You could never seal it and say that's it. It's 1:04:13.800 --> 1:04:16.280 never going to change, because it will. There'll be an 1:04:16.320 --> 1:04:18.840 open they'll put up another TV tower, somebody will have 1:04:18.880 --> 1:04:21.440 to put some foot stands in there for it to 1:04:21.520 --> 1:04:23.720 be it's another spade in the ground that's changing another 1:04:23.760 --> 1:04:27.040 little bit. But I think that I like to think 1:04:27.760 --> 1:04:31.200 that generally the RNA and the Links Trust have the 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:33.400 best interests of the Old Course at heart. That's the 1:04:33.480 --> 1:04:36.680 golden goose, right, don't want to kill the golden goose. 1:04:36.840 --> 1:04:39.600 It is the way the ball runs on this broken ground. 1:04:39.640 --> 1:04:43.120 It's the running ball. So I think they're aware, acutely 1:04:43.160 --> 1:04:46.280 aware that they need to make sure that really things 1:04:46.320 --> 1:04:49.400 don't change, and there has to be a very good limit. 1:04:49.720 --> 1:04:52.040 The watermark has to be incredibly high for them to 1:04:52.520 --> 1:04:56.480 make a change, because not only is it important, more 1:04:56.520 --> 1:04:58.760 people are watching than ever before. I don't think, you know, 1:04:58.800 --> 1:05:02.080 even when I did my first edition, it was quite 1:05:02.120 --> 1:05:05.160 hard even to get aerial photographs. Now there's drone photography everything, 1:05:05.240 --> 1:05:08.320 everything's mapped. You know, you could see if there was 1:05:08.520 --> 1:05:11.040 if there was a change, and there'll be questions to 1:05:11.080 --> 1:05:11.840 be asked. 1:05:11.840 --> 1:05:12.840 By you know who. 1:05:12.960 --> 1:05:15.320 Those are, those who are in charge to say to 1:05:15.480 --> 1:05:20.000 try and have to give very plausible reasons about why 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:23.080 this is required. And I think previously they've been talk 1:05:23.120 --> 1:05:25.360 about maybe doing this or maybe doing that, and for 1:05:25.480 --> 1:05:27.760 one reason or another it had been turned down, and 1:05:27.800 --> 1:05:31.080 I think probably rightly so, So I think I think 1:05:31.120 --> 1:05:36.120 it's becoming increasingly difficult to do any changes. But I 1:05:36.200 --> 1:05:39.680 think it's a myth if people think that everything out 1:05:39.720 --> 1:05:45.160 there is done by you know, nature. Increasingly there is 1:05:45.240 --> 1:05:48.640 small bits that are changing, and I just hope we 1:05:48.720 --> 1:05:51.400 get to a point where and this will come back 1:05:51.400 --> 1:05:54.439 to technology. And I'm very supportive of the RNA's move 1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:59.280 to try and restrict the golf ball because it is 1:05:59.360 --> 1:06:02.400 places like Andrews that I think tend to suffer. So 1:06:02.560 --> 1:06:08.120 without that some type of change to the golf ball 1:06:08.320 --> 1:06:12.680 and the equipment, then these places become increasingly at risk 1:06:12.720 --> 1:06:13.920 of further change. 1:06:15.120 --> 1:06:15.320 Scott. 1:06:15.440 --> 1:06:18.000 I think that's a good place to wrap up. I'm 1:06:18.080 --> 1:06:21.160 going through in my head all of the fascinating things 1:06:21.200 --> 1:06:23.800 in your book that we did not talk about, and 1:06:23.920 --> 1:06:26.160 I feel a little bit regretful about that, but I 1:06:26.200 --> 1:06:29.800 would definitely point people to your book. There's so much 1:06:29.920 --> 1:06:33.400 in there that we didn't cover in this episode. And 1:06:34.200 --> 1:06:36.200 you know, it's a book that I that's going to 1:06:36.240 --> 1:06:38.800 be on my shelf and I'll pull it out frequently. 1:06:39.560 --> 1:06:41.440 So could you tell people how they might get a 1:06:41.480 --> 1:06:43.959 hold of a copy of this book? 1:06:44.400 --> 1:06:46.960 Great, Yeah, I mean it's not widely available. There's a 1:06:46.960 --> 1:06:49.280 couple of shops in St. Andrews if you're visiting St Andrew's, 1:06:49.480 --> 1:06:51.800 or the easiest way is to order through my website. 1:06:52.040 --> 1:06:52.280 Scott. 1:06:53.720 --> 1:06:56.360 Scott Macpherson goolf Design dot com. And I think what 1:06:56.480 --> 1:06:58.919 I want to say about the book is that it's 1:06:59.120 --> 1:07:01.120 you know, it's a coffee table style book. It's full 1:07:01.160 --> 1:07:04.800 of great photography of the Old Course, but effectively, like 1:07:04.920 --> 1:07:07.479 you've found out, it's a research book. You know, people 1:07:07.560 --> 1:07:10.520 can dip in and dip out and if you're making it, 1:07:11.000 --> 1:07:13.480 certainly if you're making a visit to St Andrews and 1:07:13.480 --> 1:07:15.280 they'll put you on good stead to learn how the 1:07:15.320 --> 1:07:17.800 Old Course has evolved over the last two hundred years. 1:07:18.240 --> 1:07:19.880 Thank you very much, Thank. 1:07:19.720 --> 1:07:33.320 You, Thank you for listening to another edition of the 1:07:33.440 --> 1:07:38.040 Friday Golf Podcast. That was Garrett Morrison. I'm andy last 1:07:38.080 --> 1:07:40.000 time you're going to hear from me on this podcast. 1:07:41.040 --> 1:07:45.040 This episode was edited and produced by Matt Rush's Thank you, Matt. 1:07:45.440 --> 1:07:49.760 Quick reminder, while we're at the goal line here for gifts, 1:07:50.560 --> 1:07:55.560 a great gift is Club TFF. We are wrapping up 1:07:55.600 --> 1:07:57.640 the year. 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